Commission Watch

“As we transition to more renewables, we have to recognize the need for dispatchable resources to maintain reliability. If those are largely gas, then we need more pipelines.”

This small but mighty Commission handles a lot in this vast agricultural and ranching state. North Dakota PSC is also in charge of weights and measures, protecting consumers by making sure they get what they pay for. Commissioners in North Dakota are elected and spend a lot of time traveling to hearings held among constituents for the serious business of regulating in the public interest.

“The state’s greenhouse gas policies are going to be coming more into effect soon in terms of their impact to the gas grid.”

“The Transportation Division enforces the regulations of the PSC pertaining to the safety, rates, and service of passenger-for-hire transportation companies, operating in intrastate commerce.”

“We’ve recently allowed multi-year rate plans. Now we’re also focusing on the forecasting methods the utilities use because forecasting’s become a major component of the multi-year rate plan.”

“We had a number of impacts due to COVID-19. The primary impact was that electric and gas utilities requested to have stays of enforcement or basically, regulatory relief.”

“I’m mainly responsible for the regulatory process, which are the filings that come into the Technical Staff group from utility companies and others.”

“A lot of my work has dealt with some of the larger, complex rate cases that have come before the Commission, particularly the recent multi-year rate plans filed by two Maryland utilities.”

“I have been working on rolling out a CRM system that’s also going to be a new complaint portal for the Consumer Affairs Division.”

“On certain cases, we get advisers appointed to us, who are Technical Staff members who get walled off. Under that arrangement, we’re free to discuss the case with them and they’re always a big help.”